Conventional image compression systems suffer from a number of problems. They are unable to exploit visual masking and other properties of the Human Visual System (HVS) which vary spatially with image content. This is because the quantization parameters used by these algorithms are typically constant over the extent of the image. As a result, images are unable to be compressed efficiently. Also, to achieve a target bit-rate or visual quality using these systems, the image must be compressed multiple times. Additionally, image compression becomes less efficient for a textured image due to its low spatial correlation.